Task #7: Mode-bending

For this task, I re-designed task 1 so that the “bag” plays a completely different role in the question What’s in my bag? I chose to give the bag a different meaning than continuing with the idea of it just being a physical object that holds objects of more importance. I am posting the audio recording a bit late, as I wanted to get some feedback from my students I teach as well as a couple of adults to test out how well my idea of mode-bending task 1 would work. Click play below for my audio recording.

Task #8: Golden Record Curation

In preparing for this task by listening to Abby Rumsey’s lecture Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose, she sheds light on the importance of collecting what we can in order for people or in this case, extraterrestrial life, to understand our history and planet. These collections of artifacts as we know, can be anything from the past or present that describes us as a diversified ecosystem. I narrowed the Golden Record list of songs down to 10 simply by thinking about showcasing diversity through the use of different instruments, sounds and dynamics. Along with this comes showcasing the diversification and recognition we have for cultures in different geographical areas around our world. The variety of these 10 songs in a creative way portray what life was and is like on Earth for all of its inhabitants.

1. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
2. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
3. “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
4. Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
5. Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
6. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
7. Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
8. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
9. “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
10. Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38

Task #9: Golden Record Curation Quiz Data

After analyzing the 3 visualizations provided to us using our class Golden Record song choice data, I came to a couple of different conclusions. First off, it was interesting that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was collectively chosen by the majority of us, however, this didn’t surprise me at all. The fact that it didn’t surprise me raises the question as to why we chose it so quickly to represent humanity and whether it was a conscious choice or subconscious choice some of us made. Considering we all come from very different backgrounds, cultures and geographical locations, how is it we all somehow recognize the importance this song has played in the evolution of music and therefore would represent humanity well to extraterrestrial life? These variables most definitely affect our choices whether it be consciously or subconsciously because of what we’ve been subject to prior in our lives and the types of music and instruments we’re interested in or familiar with. In completing this assignment, I found myself reflecting on all of these variables and even being somewhat biased towards including some songs because of the fact I’ve simply heard the name multiple times throughout the course of my life automatically creating this alarm in my system that alerts me “that song/person is important!” However, do I know why it is really important to us as a civilization and what the songs/musicians message is…no, I don’t. This caused some concern for myself as I reflected on choosing a song like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony because I was just following along with what I’m familiar with and not really analyzing the song for a specific purpose such as the Golden Record.

Another finding came from the second visualization of our class being separated into communities by colour. To me, this was a very vague and unappealing way to represent a sense of community between myself and others in the class based on our data. From the image, it looks like we are a very disconnected group as there are 18 of us total in the class and we are evenly separated into 6 groups of 3. There is no overlapping or blending of colours which makes it seems as though each one of us has a strong connection and sense of community with two other people in the class based on our song choices, and absolutely no other connection with anyone else. This image gives us a very harsh sense of reality and feeling of uncertainty, whereas I got a much more unified feeling when analyzing the last image where the lines widths represent common choices. The line widths really helped me interpret the connections (edges) I had with my peers (nodes). Although I only share a thick line with a four of my peers, I still was able to see that I at least had some connection to everybody else, even if the line was super thin.

In conclusion, I don’t know how like-minded our class community is based on the differences shown in each of the visualizations as I stated above. I have my doubts that our sense of like-minded community might even become more skewed if we were to account for more variables (people) in the curation of data. The commonality we all share as per the results is the diversity amongst songs from across the globe. We all obviously shared an interest and commonality in representing cultural, musical and geographic diversity to the best of our ability in our top 10 song choices.